I think we can all agree with a damage buff being a good start for Defenders, but what about the inherent?

The inherent is garbage. It rewards you for fucking up, basically.

So, ideas for different Defender inherents?

Also, still waiting on Stalker suggestions.

As for the defender, there's a lot of good ideas thrown around. One would simply be to allow them to buff themselves. It doesn't address the crappy inherent, but at that point, it likely wouldn't matter.

As for the inherent itself, though, I like the idea of a see-saw. When the defender's solo or in a team that's in good shape, it's a damage buff. As the team/defender gets worse shape, the damage buff is lessened and it begins to act like a miniature Power Build-Up, boosting heals and buffs and debuffs.

As for stalkers, the problem is that their design is a bit antithetical to the way CoX is actually played. The game's fast. Teams burn down one group then move on to the next. No one wants to stop and wait for the stalker.

I think a nice bonus - and I'd do this in addition to Duck's suggestion - would be to make Assassin Strike sort of teleport the stalker to the target (at least in PvE), sort of like a Warrior's Charge/Intercept in WoW. That way, the stalker can get the drop on the tough mobs without having to slow his whole team down trying to do so.

EDIT: And yeah, the mechanic's the in game, but the actual damage it confers is laughable.

Accualt had a pretty decent one I think, more damage when your teammates are doing well health wise and more defense/resistance whatever when your teammates are in trouble. I think that was what he said anyway.

Yep, that was it. From the start I thought the +end was dumb and that a +res/def would be better since I always see teams wipe when the Defender gets killed or held but never because a Defender ran out of END. Not to mention it just seems far more heroic for a Defender to shrug off damage when their team mates need them. Also it gives you an incentive to use your blasts as long as your team is feeling good and it doesn't negatively impact buffers.

Using totally random numbers for ease lets say you get a 100% bonus to DMG when all of your team members are at full health (they could, of course, put this on a sliding scale so the bonus is larger based on the number of group members just like the current inherent works). If your teams overall % of HP is 50% you get a 25% dmg buff and 75% def/res/end(whatever) buff. If your teams overall % of HP is 0 congratulations you are dead way to be a terrible Defender. It could even have a nifty bar like the old Blaster inherent had...if they can get it to update in real time.

I actually PMed the idea to Castle but he never said anything back to me. So, uh, if any of you have pull with the devs please tell them about my lovely see-saw idea. Because, really, Defenders have been ignored for too long.

Also they should give Defenders an old school version of Vengeance. When a Defender falls in battle his team mates are so moved by his sacrifice that they are inspired to fight on with greater fervor. The whole team gets a random buff to either Defense, Accuracy, Damage, or Endurance Regeneration along with a small heal.
You know Vengeance became a big joke with all of us but I originally took it because the power USE to buff the team when the owner of the power died. I kind of missed the self-sacrificing nature of the power, I essentially took a power that would be of no benefit to me. Of course then they changed it and my sidekicks deaths rendered me onto a god!

I don't have any real experience with Stalkers, but I've always wondered why Hide isn't part of their inherent. Sure, making it the mandatory power choice is convenient, but Stalker secondaries that are ported over from other ATs (which is... all but one I think?) lose what could be another beneficial power. RttC being an example, though I know Stalker Willpower is different in other ways too.

As for Defenders, the current method of applying one type of buff to the defender doesn't work because the defender sets are too varied. Maybe a +damage vs. +power boost see-saw would work... though again, that helps some sets much more than others. What's an FF defender going to do when it hits the fan, rebubble? Perhaps an inherent with a +defense team buff (like a mini-Vengeance) or mez protection for the defender when two or more team members are in the orange or lower would be more helpful. And would fit the idea of Vigilance better too.

Edit: Back to the old topic for a moment... s3rial, you're misrepresenting or misunderstanding what the issue is. I know you know better!

HarshLanguage on May 2008

> turn on lightGood start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.

I think Stalkers are badly designed because they are required to take two powers that are only useful because of their inherent. Their AS is only good if they are hiding and hide is really only good for ASing. For that reason at least Hide should be an inherent power. I mean, hell, their inherent doesn't even work without Hide.

The AT makes sense for a Villain it just doesn't play well with the over all game design....teams. Maybe they could make it so that the more members there are on a Stalker's team the more likely they are to crit outside of Hide? It makes sense considering the battles are more chaotic and therefore a Stalker should have an easier time of sneaking up on enemies in the middle of a fight.

I'm afraid you all fail at kicking the dead horse zombie. If you'll allow...

Hey guys, I'm thinking about creating a villain character to solo with, so I can experience all the content. I'm guessing Brute or Mastermind would be the best ATs? But I'm not really feeling the Mastermind powersets, except maybe Mercs. On the flip side though, I've just played a Kat/WP Scrapper to the 40s, so I'm not sure if I want to go another 40 levels meleeing, with a weaker character. I'm thinking maybe Fire/Fire or */SR? How will playing a Brute compare to playing a Kat/WP Scrapper?

Hey guys, I'm thinking about creating a villain character to solo with, so I can experience all the content. I'm guessing Brute or Mastermind would be the best ATs? But I'm not really feeling the Mastermind powersets, except maybe Mercs. On the flip side though, I've just played a Kat/WP Scrapper to the 40s, so I'm not sure if I want to go another 40 levels meleeing, with a weaker character. I'm thinking maybe Fire/Fire or */SR? How will playing a Brute compare to playing a Kat/WP Scrapper?

If you want to solo a villain to 50, roll a Mastermind.

My Thugs/Dark Mastermind just hit 50 a while ago, and I soloed about 98% of the time. While there are some rough patches (also known as "Scrapyarders"), after a while the only thing that gave me pause were missions with a bunch of Nemesis + Elite Bosses, or the EB version of Positron, who's just a fucking bastard.

My fix for stalkers is a change to the hide mechanic entirely. Rather than have it drop off when you do damage I would have it be removed only when you take damage. This would also be dependant on the set. Resistance sets would be dropped out of hide by hits over X% of their health. Defense sets would be dropped out of hide if they were even hit.

What this means is constant critical hits in the right circumstances. I would make the critical damage unresistable so that lethal and smashing sets don't get screwed over. Of course, to compensate for what is essentially a double damage buff there would have to be some slight damage nerfs, but I think the change to playstyle would be appropriate overall.

I envision stalkers doing big bursts of damage often, instead of just one huge AS and then they're spent. Really, I'm up for any idea that either keeps them ASing constantly as part of a solid attack chain, or keeps them doing some kind of unresistable damage to help the poor weapon sets.

Honestly though, some sets do fucking suck balls and should only be taken for concept purposes. And there are powers that nobody should ever, ever take, or would you actually tell a fellow PA person that Chain Induction is a worthwhile power? Or would you suggest that Stalkers actually take Elec Armor? I'm sorry, this is not The Brady Bunch; I'm not going to chuckle and ruffle your hair while you propose to make a terrible decision. I am going to call you and possibly your entire family tree a bushel of retards while telling you why you're an idiot.

Actually, funny story. Elec armor is built to win the fight in about 10 seconds. It has slow resist, even a passive +recharge, decent resists to all damage types (save toxic) and such. It's a set designed for you to run in, mop up, and get out. It's when the fight drags that /elec armor starts to die all over. Which sounds oddly exactly like a stalker. So elec armor may end up being a really good stalker armor set.

I was thinkin' I was. Stalkers big problem is their role on a team. My proposal is to give them several options from hide, not just AS. Give them two or three powers that each have an AoE debuff/buff attached, when used out of hide/placate. Like instead of just having, say, Smite crit out of hide, have it do normal damage but also an AoE to-hit debuff. Give one of the claws sets a caltrops-on-crit. Or an AoE knockdown. Maybe the katana can give leadership-like buff auras for 10, 20 seconds after the power is used. There's options.

Sure, they'd step on corrupter's toes a little, an in terms of man-hours it'd probably be a bitch. But it'd put them back on teams.

I'm afraid you all fail at kicking the dead horse zombie. If you'll allow...

Hey guys, I'm thinking about creating a villain character to solo with, so I can experience all the content. I'm guessing Brute or Mastermind would be the best ATs? But I'm not really feeling the Mastermind powersets, except maybe Mercs. On the flip side though, I've just played a Kat/WP Scrapper to the 40s, so I'm not sure if I want to go another 40 levels meleeing, with a weaker character. I'm thinking maybe Fire/Fire or */SR? How will playing a Brute compare to playing a Kat/WP Scrapper?

Brutes aren't weaker than scrappers, they're different. Brutes are all about the sustained fighting. Watching your fury bar becomes a stupidly fun mini-game after a while. Brutes are frustrating in the early levels because of this, mainly due to endurance problems. An 80% full fury bar and a 1% full end bar will drive you nuts until stamina. But the trade off is one shotting lieutenants, which is more than fair I feel.

MMs are actually more fun solo than teams for me. It's great fun to order around your own little army, and sit in the back laughing and dropping buffs/debuffs while other people do the real dirty work. The setup time does get a bit annoying, though, especially when you're dropping 6 pets and 2 buffs for each. In team they're kinda a pain in the butt. You hold up the team at the beginning of the mission, and pets don't really have the life bars to take on huge spawns, particularly spawns with AoEs. Resummoning/rebuffing 6 guys gets really old really fast. I only solo on my necro/dark MM anymore.

They should give them a skill that works like WoW rogues shadowstep. Instant teleport behind the enemy, except also put them back into hide no matter what. Maybe with a cooldown as long as some of the big melee AE's so it can fit into chains, but can't really be part of a chain.

EWom on May 2008

Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called an enemy planet.

MMs are actually more fun solo than teams for me. It's great fun to order around your own little army, and sit in the back laughing and dropping buffs/debuffs while other people do the real dirty work. The setup time does get a bit annoying, though, especially when you're dropping 6 pets and 2 buffs for each. In team they're kinda a pain in the butt. You hold up the team at the beginning of the mission, and pets don't really have the life bars to take on huge spawns, particularly spawns with AoEs. Resummoning/rebuffing 6 guys gets really old really fast. I only solo on my necro/dark MM anymore.

I've always thought the buff powers should increase in effectivness after so many levels, say at like 24 the first upgrade will affect the entire set of minion types you are upgrading, and at like 42 the second one will upgrade the entire set as well.

That way you only have to cast each power three times to get your entire army upgraded.

MM pet upgrades are one of the more obvious (and thankfully among the last) ways that "inconvenience as a balance mechanism" was used in the game. Many player buffs also still demonstrate this (SB, the click PBAOE buffs, etc). Odd powers like Practiced Brawler, which requires more manual action than identical powers in other sets, fit this too (though at least there's an upside to that power's implementation).

Older zones had the same idea built in; newer zones have pretty much done away with silly inconveniences like no store, no trainer, no easy access, etc.

I know that sort of thing is as old as MMOs (inconvenience = more time spent playing = more time spent paying, I guess), but it's not an idea that has aged well.

HarshLanguage on May 2008

> turn on lightGood start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.

Agreed, I wish they'd either make summons last between zones or make pet buffs an AoE/AllPet thing. As much as I enjoy Bots/Dark, the mission setup time will likely make me shelve the character forever once he hits 50.

Oh. And if they reduced character collisions on them, I don't think anyone would shed a tear. Bloody EQ2 handles character collision better than CoX (ie, it achieves its purpose without making you feel like everyone has a forcefield around them. And pets have no collision boxes. And you get spells that reduce their size visually to reduce mission clutter). Rhubarb rhubarb.

Honestly though, some sets do fucking suck balls and should only be taken for concept purposes. And there are powers that nobody should ever, ever take, or would you actually tell a fellow PA person that Chain Induction is a worthwhile power? Or would you suggest that Stalkers actually take Elec Armor? I'm sorry, this is not The Brady Bunch; I'm not going to chuckle and ruffle your hair while you propose to make a terrible decision. I am going to call you and possibly your entire family tree a bushel of retards while telling you why you're an idiot.

Actually, funny story. Elec armor is built to win the fight in about 10 seconds. It has slow resist, even a passive +recharge, decent resists to all damage types (save toxic) and such. It's a set designed for you to run in, mop up, and get out. It's when the fight drags that /elec armor starts to die all over. Which sounds oddly exactly like a stalker. So elec armor may end up being a really good stalker armor set.

Or the armor could support you in case things don't go the way you expect it to, maybe, I dunno. Elec has poor resist values and no self heal (huge hit). Oh, but it still has both Conserve Power and the drain! Congrats on having more end recovery than anyone ever takes. The set is a death trap. I know I shouldn't compare sets like this because it offends people's sensibilities, but it doesn't hold a candle to sets like Ninjitsu.